GRADS
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EDIT: This will probably take a while to read so either grab a coffee or a drink when you have a few minutes before you read...if you even want to.
I wanted to take a minute and explain what happened to me last week, what I saw in the hospital, my experience with COVID and my thoughts going forward. Maybe some of the info can help someone else. It's going to be long and I will most likely break my own 3 paragraph rule.
A little background on me...I'm 50 years old, I don't smoke but I do drink alcohol...sometimes too much. I'm carrying about 20-30 extra pounds that I could really afford to lose. I Exercise daily and am pretty active. I walk/jog 3-4 miles a day every day and also lift weight for about 1/2 hour. I also paddle board 2-3 times a week for usually 5+ miles. You get my point, I'm not a couch potato.
As far as my eating habits they are not that bad. I eat fast food maybe once or twice a year. We don't have a lot of shit food around the house but I will have potato/tortilla chips on the weekends. In hindsight I probably eat too many steaks and go to restaurants too often even though at those restaurants I usually choose the healthiest thing on the menu. With that said I do order pizza and stuff like that occasionally.
Family history: I get high cholesterol from my Mom's side and high blood pressure from my Dad's. I have both. I control my high blood pressure through medication and exercise and have kept it in check for the most part. The cholesterol is a different story which turned out to be my achilles heal. My doctor has been warning me for the better part of 15 years that I should maybe consider taking medicine for it which I have not.
This brings us to two Tuesdays ago. I woke up Tuesday morning to the sound of my pulse/heart. I could only hear it when it was very quiet and I had my head on my arm so I assumed that's where it was coming from. No big deal. The next day I wake up and the same thing, but this time I realize the sound is in my head (literally) and in one ear more that the other. At that point I kind of assumed with it being allergy season that one of my ears was plugged and that is why I was hearing it. Thursday morning same thing.
Thursday is when things started to go south, although I didn't realize it. Thursday afternoon after going jogging I was lifting weights in the garage. I stood up from the bench and all of a sudden I was in a daze, lightheaded and my right leg went goofy...it wasn't asleep, it wasn't tingling it just really wasn't doing what I wanted it to. This feeling lasted for about 5 minutes as I tried to walk it off. Kind of strange but I chalked it up to dehydration and working out too hard. Later that night Kate and I sat down to dinner, I was still in a little bit of a funk. When all of a sudden it came time to eat and I could not feed myself...I could not physically lift the fork to my mouth. I wouldn't say I was slurring my words but having a tough time concentrating. So I told her "I'm having troubles here feeding myself" to which she replied something like "you're fine just shake it off". So I did, I sat there for 5+ minutes trying to regain my mobility, which I eventually did. That night I went to bed and could hear the pulsing in my head which was the first time I had heard it at night. It was so loud I had trouble getting to sleep.
Friday morning I woke up in a "funk" to the sound of the pulsing/heartbeat even louder. As much as I feared going to the doctor because of COVID I figured it might be time to get this "ear infection" take care of. So I made an appt. for 11 a.m. In the meantime I thought the best cure to get rid of the funk would be to go jogging so I did. I also wanted to go paddle boarding because the lake was opening that day for the first time since quarantine started but I figured I'd do it after my appt. I damn near blew off the doctors appt because of COVID. It literally was a 50/50 chance I'd go 15 minutes beforehand.
So I go to the doctor and I tell him I hear my pulse in my head and I probably just have an ear infection. He looks at me kind of funny and looks in my ears...nothing. Does a couple other tests...nothing. Then he takes his stethoscope and listens to my neck...he seemed visibly rattled. He even said "this is not good". He said we need to do tests ASAP. He asked me a series of questions one being have you had any weakness in your arms and legs? And then it dawned on me... I said well yesterday I had trouble controlling the right side of my body twice. He was like Jesus Christ Greg you probably had a stroke. The appt. was over at that point and luckily his office is right next to the ER because he physically walked me to the ER himself.
We get to the ER and thanks to COVID it was empty. They seemed very concerned and got me in immediately. They did numerous tests including a CT scan and MRI. The doctor came into my room and said that my carotid artery in my neck is 90% blocked. He said they were admitting me to the ICU to keep a close eye on me because I could go lights out or stroke out at any time. He also said he's not sure how I walked in there...I was like oh please I ran a couple miles this morning, to which he replied "you're lucky to have survived it".
At this point I'm kind of FREAKING THE FUCK OUT for many reasons. I'm in the biggest hospital in our area that treats COVID patients and up until an hour ago my biggest fear in life was catching COVID. They are telling me I've had two strokes because they can see the brain damage on the MRI, I'm going to have to have a surgery/procedure to get the blockage and I'm going at this all alone because no one is allowed in the hospital due to COVID. I guess when I told Kate I was going to a dr. appt and I'll be back in 1/2 an hour, that was a lie.
So I won't go into too much detail on this but they gave me the option of surgery where they cut my neck open or having a stent placed. This part is what pissed me off the most. Nobody would offer an opinion or say what was best. I asked many doctors and they all basically had the same answer..."it's up to you". And it was up to me being that I had no family there to help in the decision. It was a tough decision...I mean really tough but I opted for the stent. They said they would do it the next morning. Well it turns out I was taking a heartburn medicine that doesn't jive with blood thinners that they would give me so I would have to wait until Monday for the procedure.
COVID:
The next 2 1/2 days all I could do was lay in bed in the ICU. They wouldn't even let me get up to go to the bathroom by myself. During this time I had multiple nurses. I got to know them (some better than others) and started asking about COVID. But first let me preface this by saying that I was the guy at the grocery store dressed head to toe with a mask and gloves and damn near went through a nuclear decontamination process every time I got home, letting some groceries sit out in the garage for days before bringing them inside and then wiping them down with Clorox wipes. So basically, besides my health problems, I was living my worst nightmare being at the hospital. The first day I didn't touch anything and would not remove my mask. But then I started to notice something...the nurses seemed totally relaxed, even kind of bored. So I had to ask...."how many COVID patients are in here right now?" The nurse replied "None". I said "did you say none?" She said "Yep and we'd know if we did because they would be on this floor and in fact the room 2 doors down from you is a COVID room because it has a negative air flow". Mind you this floor only had 30 rooms. MY MIND WAS BLOWN! I was in the biggest most advanced hospital in the County (and probably NORCAL) and there were no COVID patients? While I was thrilled to hear that, it was a tough pill to swallow. The nurses really put my mind at ease though. Off came the mask! Before you knew it I was touching things, not washing my hands, rubbing my eyes and licking my fingers clean from the delicious meals they served. And If I'm going to be 100% honest here there came a point in time where I turned on my beloved CNN...it was nothing but doom and gloom and COVID EVERYWHERE! I'm laying in my bed and I think I actually yelled out at the TV "where is all this COVID you fucktards?". I immediately turned the channel and haven't watched it since. I've been CNN sober now for over a week.
Still talking COVID here and other observations I made. The nice thing about my stay was I was the first person to ever sleep in my hospital room. You see, our hospital was in the process of building a new multi million dollar ER/ICU That was supposed to be completed June 1st but when COVID happened they stepped it up and finished early thinking they would need the beds. (The following is what the nurses told me) Along with those beds they needed more staff, so they went out and hired a bunch of nurses. Most of the which were traveling nurses that uprooted to move here. By April 1st they were running at 100%...and then there were very little or no COVID patients. To top that off people like myself were scared to go to the ER/Hospital so regular patient flow was cut down to 1/3 of what it usually was. This was nice for me because I would ring the call light and they would be there within 15 seconds because they had nothing else to do. It was not good for the nurses...they came in one day and staff had randomly picked 30 of the nurses and told them they will not be needing them anymore.
I have since changed my views on COVID. I don't think it is fake but I do think it has been blown WAY out of proportion. To the point that yesterday I strutted my painted toe nails in flip flip flops, t-shirt, shorts, no mask and no gloves in the grocery store yesterday. Touched the pen at the pharmacy counter, used the pin pad at the counter, touched the grocery cart...this would've been unthinkable 2 weeks ago!
Back to the procedure. I had it done Monday with some slight complications afterwards (no big deal). They went in through my right groin and placed a stent on the left side of my neck. It's been about a week now and I feel pretty good. It's not like a heart stent where people say I feel 100% better than I did before...I felt fine before it happened it's just that my brain is getting more blood now instead of only 10%. LOL. The hardest part of it was not having my wife there throughout the whole ordeal and I'm pissed at COVID and our government for that. Going in and out surgery alone was probably the loneliest I have ever felt. There was only about a 5% chance I wouldn't make it through surgery but with no one there to talk me down I "what if'd" myself to death. Ultimately I decided if this was it, so be it , it was meant to be.
Going forward, I have to take blood thinners for a year and cholesterol medication for life which really isn't a big deal. When I left the hospital the doctor looked right at me and said "you are lucky to be alive my friend". This is a double edged sword. On one hand I feel like I am lucky and have a new lease on life on the other hand if I wouldn't have gone to the doctor for my "ear infection" I most likely wouldn't have made it through the weekend...and I am struggling with this a bit. I'm trying to concentrate on the new life part...I'm trying to concentrate on making my relationship with friends and family the best that it can be, try not to sweat the small stuff(which is tough for me), live in the now and by that I mean we have been living very "safely" the last 10 years...I'm over it...where would it have gotten me if died last weekend? I'm buying a new fucking boat or a house in Tahoe ASAP with minimal down! LOL! I have also deleted my twitter and don't really care to talk politics anymore...life is too short for that.
I wanted to take a minute and explain what happened to me last week, what I saw in the hospital, my experience with COVID and my thoughts going forward. Maybe some of the info can help someone else. It's going to be long and I will most likely break my own 3 paragraph rule.
A little background on me...I'm 50 years old, I don't smoke but I do drink alcohol...sometimes too much. I'm carrying about 20-30 extra pounds that I could really afford to lose. I Exercise daily and am pretty active. I walk/jog 3-4 miles a day every day and also lift weight for about 1/2 hour. I also paddle board 2-3 times a week for usually 5+ miles. You get my point, I'm not a couch potato.
As far as my eating habits they are not that bad. I eat fast food maybe once or twice a year. We don't have a lot of shit food around the house but I will have potato/tortilla chips on the weekends. In hindsight I probably eat too many steaks and go to restaurants too often even though at those restaurants I usually choose the healthiest thing on the menu. With that said I do order pizza and stuff like that occasionally.
Family history: I get high cholesterol from my Mom's side and high blood pressure from my Dad's. I have both. I control my high blood pressure through medication and exercise and have kept it in check for the most part. The cholesterol is a different story which turned out to be my achilles heal. My doctor has been warning me for the better part of 15 years that I should maybe consider taking medicine for it which I have not.
This brings us to two Tuesdays ago. I woke up Tuesday morning to the sound of my pulse/heart. I could only hear it when it was very quiet and I had my head on my arm so I assumed that's where it was coming from. No big deal. The next day I wake up and the same thing, but this time I realize the sound is in my head (literally) and in one ear more that the other. At that point I kind of assumed with it being allergy season that one of my ears was plugged and that is why I was hearing it. Thursday morning same thing.
Thursday is when things started to go south, although I didn't realize it. Thursday afternoon after going jogging I was lifting weights in the garage. I stood up from the bench and all of a sudden I was in a daze, lightheaded and my right leg went goofy...it wasn't asleep, it wasn't tingling it just really wasn't doing what I wanted it to. This feeling lasted for about 5 minutes as I tried to walk it off. Kind of strange but I chalked it up to dehydration and working out too hard. Later that night Kate and I sat down to dinner, I was still in a little bit of a funk. When all of a sudden it came time to eat and I could not feed myself...I could not physically lift the fork to my mouth. I wouldn't say I was slurring my words but having a tough time concentrating. So I told her "I'm having troubles here feeding myself" to which she replied something like "you're fine just shake it off". So I did, I sat there for 5+ minutes trying to regain my mobility, which I eventually did. That night I went to bed and could hear the pulsing in my head which was the first time I had heard it at night. It was so loud I had trouble getting to sleep.
Friday morning I woke up in a "funk" to the sound of the pulsing/heartbeat even louder. As much as I feared going to the doctor because of COVID I figured it might be time to get this "ear infection" take care of. So I made an appt. for 11 a.m. In the meantime I thought the best cure to get rid of the funk would be to go jogging so I did. I also wanted to go paddle boarding because the lake was opening that day for the first time since quarantine started but I figured I'd do it after my appt. I damn near blew off the doctors appt because of COVID. It literally was a 50/50 chance I'd go 15 minutes beforehand.
So I go to the doctor and I tell him I hear my pulse in my head and I probably just have an ear infection. He looks at me kind of funny and looks in my ears...nothing. Does a couple other tests...nothing. Then he takes his stethoscope and listens to my neck...he seemed visibly rattled. He even said "this is not good". He said we need to do tests ASAP. He asked me a series of questions one being have you had any weakness in your arms and legs? And then it dawned on me... I said well yesterday I had trouble controlling the right side of my body twice. He was like Jesus Christ Greg you probably had a stroke. The appt. was over at that point and luckily his office is right next to the ER because he physically walked me to the ER himself.
We get to the ER and thanks to COVID it was empty. They seemed very concerned and got me in immediately. They did numerous tests including a CT scan and MRI. The doctor came into my room and said that my carotid artery in my neck is 90% blocked.
He said they were admitting me to the ICU to keep a close eye on me because I could go lights out or stroke out at any time. He also said he's not sure how I walked in there...I was like oh please I ran a couple miles this morning, to which he replied "you're lucky to have survived it".At this point I'm kind of FREAKING THE FUCK OUT for many reasons. I'm in the biggest hospital in our area that treats COVID patients and up until an hour ago my biggest fear in life was catching COVID. They are telling me I've had two strokes because they can see the brain damage on the MRI, I'm going to have to have a surgery/procedure to get the blockage and I'm going at this all alone because no one is allowed in the hospital due to COVID. I guess when I told Kate I was going to a dr. appt and I'll be back in 1/2 an hour, that was a lie.
So I won't go into too much detail on this but they gave me the option of surgery where they cut my neck open or having a stent placed. This part is what pissed me off the most. Nobody would offer an opinion or say what was best. I asked many doctors and they all basically had the same answer..."it's up to you". And it was up to me being that I had no family there to help in the decision. It was a tough decision...I mean really tough but I opted for the stent. They said they would do it the next morning. Well it turns out I was taking a heartburn medicine that doesn't jive with blood thinners that they would give me so I would have to wait until Monday for the procedure.
COVID:
The next 2 1/2 days all I could do was lay in bed in the ICU. They wouldn't even let me get up to go to the bathroom by myself. During this time I had multiple nurses. I got to know them (some better than others) and started asking about COVID. But first let me preface this by saying that I was the guy at the grocery store dressed head to toe with a mask and gloves and damn near went through a nuclear decontamination process every time I got home, letting some groceries sit out in the garage for days before bringing them inside and then wiping them down with Clorox wipes. So basically, besides my health problems, I was living my worst nightmare being at the hospital. The first day I didn't touch anything and would not remove my mask. But then I started to notice something...the nurses seemed totally relaxed, even kind of bored. So I had to ask...."how many COVID patients are in here right now?" The nurse replied "None".
I said "did you say none?" She said "Yep and we'd know if we did because they would be on this floor and in fact the room 2 doors down from you is a COVID room because it has a negative air flow". Mind you this floor only had 30 rooms. MY MIND WAS BLOWN! I was in the biggest most advanced hospital in the County (and probably NORCAL) and there were no COVID patients? While I was thrilled to hear that, it was a tough pill to swallow. The nurses really put my mind at ease though. Off came the mask! Before you knew it I was touching things, not washing my hands, rubbing my eyes and licking my fingers clean from the delicious meals they served. And If I'm going to be 100% honest here there came a point in time where I turned on my beloved CNN...it was nothing but doom and gloom and COVID EVERYWHERE! I'm laying in my bed and I think I actually yelled out at the TV "where is all this COVID you fucktards?". I immediately turned the channel and haven't watched it since. I've been CNN sober now for over a week.Still talking COVID here and other observations I made. The nice thing about my stay was I was the first person to ever sleep in my hospital room. You see, our hospital was in the process of building a new multi million dollar ER/ICU That was supposed to be completed June 1st but when COVID happened they stepped it up and finished early thinking they would need the beds. (The following is what the nurses told me) Along with those beds they needed more staff, so they went out and hired a bunch of nurses. Most of the which were traveling nurses that uprooted to move here. By April 1st they were running at 100%...and then there were very little or no COVID patients. To top that off people like myself were scared to go to the ER/Hospital so regular patient flow was cut down to 1/3 of what it usually was. This was nice for me because I would ring the call light and they would be there within 15 seconds because they had nothing else to do. It was not good for the nurses...they came in one day and staff had randomly picked 30 of the nurses and told them they will not be needing them anymore.
I have since changed my views on COVID. I don't think it is fake but I do think it has been blown WAY out of proportion. To the point that yesterday I strutted my painted toe nails in flip flip flops, t-shirt, shorts, no mask and no gloves in the grocery store yesterday. Touched the pen at the pharmacy counter, used the pin pad at the counter, touched the grocery cart...this would've been unthinkable 2 weeks ago!
Back to the procedure. I had it done Monday with some slight complications afterwards (no big deal). They went in through my right groin and placed a stent on the left side of my neck. It's been about a week now and I feel pretty good. It's not like a heart stent where people say I feel 100% better than I did before...I felt fine before it happened it's just that my brain is getting more blood now instead of only 10%. LOL. The hardest part of it was not having my wife there throughout the whole ordeal and I'm pissed at COVID and our government for that. Going in and out surgery alone was probably the loneliest I have ever felt. There was only about a 5% chance I wouldn't make it through surgery but with no one there to talk me down I "what if'd" myself to death. Ultimately I decided if this was it, so be it , it was meant to be.
Going forward, I have to take blood thinners for a year and cholesterol medication for life which really isn't a big deal. When I left the hospital the doctor looked right at me and said "you are lucky to be alive my friend". This is a double edged sword. On one hand I feel like I am lucky and have a new lease on life on the other hand if I wouldn't have gone to the doctor for my "ear infection" I most likely wouldn't have made it through the weekend...and I am struggling with this a bit. I'm trying to concentrate on the new life part...I'm trying to concentrate on making my relationship with friends and family the best that it can be, try not to sweat the small stuff(which is tough for me), live in the now and by that I mean we have been living very "safely" the last 10 years...I'm over it...where would it have gotten me if died last weekend? I'm buying a new fucking boat or a house in Tahoe ASAP with minimal down! LOL! I have also deleted my twitter and don't really care to talk politics anymore...life is too short for that.
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